Leading Technology Companies Support Formation of OpenStack Foundation

AT&T, Canonical, HP, IBM, Nebula, Rackspace, Red Hat, SUSE and eleven
other companies make early commitments to participate based on published
Framework

April 12, 2012 10:01 AM Eastern Daylight Time

SAN ANTONIO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Todaynineteen leading technology companies announced their plans
to become Platinum or Gold members of the OpenStack® Foundation, an
independent and long-term home forOpenStack,
the open source cloud operating system. AT&T, Canonical, HP, IBM,
Nebula, Rackspace, Red Hat, and SUSE have indicated their intent to join
the foundation as Platinum Members, and Cisco, ClearPath Networks,
Cloudscaling, Dell, DreamHost, ITRI, Mirantis, Morphlabs, NetApp, Piston
Cloud Computing and Yahoo! as Gold Members based on the principles
outlined in the published
mission and framework.

These industry leaders, through their intent to become members of the
Foundation, plan to provide technical and financial resources to ensure
the long-term viability of the project, further accelerating open
innovation and adoption of OpenStack. Each of the companies were active
contributors to the most recent release of OpenStack, have expressed
their belief in the open development process for OpenStack software, and
have expressed or executed corporate strategies that align with
OpenStack’s mission.

The OpenStack Foundation will be an independent body providing shared
resources to help achieve the OpenStack mission by protecting,
empowering, and promoting OpenStack software and the community around
it, including users, developers and the entire ecosystem. The companies
involved in its formation are committed to the “OpenStack Way”: an open
development process for OpenStack software that is driven by a technical
meritocracy, supported by significant investments in community building
and a focus on driving adoption. The process for finalizing the
foundation documents will be open to all members of the community, with
the initial committed companies providing legal support to aid in the
drafting process.

“In less than two years, we’ve had five software releases from hundreds
of contributors from more than 50 companies, and the cloud operating
system has grown from two core projects to five core projects across
compute, storage and networking,” said Jonathan Bryce, OpenStack Project
Policy Board and co-founder Rackspace Cloud. “The formation of a
Foundation is about preserving and accelerating what's working and
moving the community building activities to a neutral long-term home
with a broad base of support.”

The next step in the Foundation building process is to form a drafting
committee with the legal help of committed Platinum and Gold members,
who will write the detailed Bylaws based on the published framework, and
will publish drafts for community review. The goal is to reach a final
draft for ratification by the Rackspace Board and the OpenStack
community by Q3-2012.

In addition to Platinum and Gold membership, the OpenStack Foundation
will also be open to Individual Members for free. There are also
multiple ways to get involved in the Foundation or influence the project
that do not involve monetary support, for more information please visit http://wiki.openstack.org/Governance/Foundation/.

"Ubuntu and OpenStack share key values: high quality governance, a focus
on computing at scale, reliable schedules and robust releases. The
success of OpenStack depends on the quality of its leadership, and we
are delighted to support the OpenStack Foundation as a forum for that
leadership."

“ClearPath has long been working with OpenStack to build an open cloud
platform based on open standards. We are very proud to be associated
with this formative project. OpenStack will be leveraged as a standard
foundational element for the creation of not just public and private
clouds, but dynamic virtual private clouds and the inter-cloud of the
future. In our shared vision, the future to the cloud is through open
standards. ClearPath is committed to this future for the betterment of
service providers, enterprises, and their users.”

"The OpenStack Foundation is the next step in OpenStack's journey as the
fastest growing project in open source history. Rackspace has been a
tremendous steward of the project, and in this role they have guided
OpenStack toward greater success. Rackspace and the entire OpenStack
community know that the formation of the OpenStack Foundation is the
correct next step to move the mantle of leadership to the community
itself. We are thrilled to see the Foundation come to life."

“We believe the OpenStack Foundation is a significant step in the
evolution of the OpenStack initiative and for open source cloud
innovation. Dell has always been about open – open standards, systems
and solutions to promote innovation and give our customers choice. We
look forward to participating in the OpenStack Foundation as part of our
continued efforts to empower and grow the open source cloud ecosystem.”

"DreamHost has built its web and app hosting business on open source
principles and software. From Linux to WordPress to Ceph to OpenStack,
we believe that open source is the best foundation for innovation on a
global scale. The formation of the OpenStack Foundation will enable the
contributions of all developers to the OpenStack cloud platform - now
and in future - to be nurtured, protected, and empower the next
generation of cloud services worldwide."

“OpenStack is a core element to the HP Converged Cloud strategy and is
fundamental to enabling a hybrid delivery set of solutions across
private, managed and public clouds. We are collaborating with other
Foundation members to accelerate the deployments of OpenStack
technology, and provide progressive, open tools for developers, partners
and businesses of all sizes.”

“IBM has a long history of supporting standards and open source
initiatives, and believes that cloud standards should be user-driven,
based on real world client needs. We will be a platinum sponsor of the
OpenStack Foundation and will leverage our extensive client experience
and SmartCloud offerings in support of this initiative. The adoption of
cloud standards should be a top priority for the industry so that
end-users will not have to fear vendor lock-in and can participate in a
growing market of cloud providers.”

“ITRI CCMA is pleased to announce its participation commitment for the
preparation of the OpenStack Foundation. We intend to promote the
’OpenStack way’ in the Asia-Pacific region with the goal of moving the
global ecosystem toward long-term success.”

“We see the application infrastructure industry to be increasingly
driven by a combination of services and open software, rather than
closed, proprietary solutions. The explosive rate of adoption of
OpenStack is an example of this trend. At Mirantis, we are fully
committed to continue contributing to OpenStack and helping
organizations take advantage of the light-speed innovation taking place
in this open community.”

"OpenStack provides a needed base for the entire cloud computing
ecosystem to deliver innovative products that will further accelerate
the adoption of cloud infrastructure. The creation of the OpenStack
Foundation demonstrates a clear intent to ensure a sustainable future
for the core technology. Morphlabs has a track record of leveraging the
best open source building blocks to deliver mission-critical cloud
products reliably, and we look forward to contributing our experience
and leadership to the community.”

Chris C. Kemp, CEO, Nebula:

"Establishing an effective governance structure is critical to the
success of any collaborative project with the magnitude and potential of
OpenStack. This is an incredible milestone which will further accelerate
and promote the growth of the OpenStack ecosystem."

“NetApp has a long history of open source contribution, support and
community involvement. We are excited to continue in that tradition as
part of the OpenStack Foundation. We believe the breadth and depth of
the OpenStack community will drive widespread adoption of industry
leading open cloud services. By expanding OpenStack storage capabilities
with natively integrated NetApp technology, users will be able to build
on a storage foundation that delivers elastic, flexible and efficient
storage and data management functionality essential for the delivery of
sustainable clouds.”

“Rackspace has done an incredible job shepherding this open source
project from its inception and has empowered the broader OpenStack
community to take responsibility for seeing this project through the
last two years. Members of the Piston Cloud team have also been there
since the beginning and we are thrilled to continue working with our
fellow foundation members to drive OpenStack adoption and development
forward and contribute to its success.”

"The growth of the OpenStack community has been exciting to watch, and
we are proud to see the formation of the OpenStack Foundation. As a
platinum member, Rackspace will continue to be involved by creating
products powered by OpenStack, helping customers implement OpenStack
Clouds and donating code to OpenStack. We look forward to increasing our
collaboration with the OpenStack Foundation member companies as we make
OpenStack the open source cloud software of choice."

"OpenStack's new foundation governance model enables the expansion of an
open and broad leadership community around its technology that aligns
with the open and collaborative principles that are core to Red Hat.
With Red Hat's goal to provide customers with the technology and
capabilities to build open hybrid clouds, our participation in OpenStack
complements our portfolio and approach well. We are excited to further
extend our participation in the OpenStack community as a Platinum Member
of the OpenStack Foundation."

"As an open source software pioneer, SUSE is committed to building
collaborative communities that deliver meaningful innovation for
enterprises worldwide. The creation of an OpenStack Foundation will
ensure the long-term viability of the project and the philosophy of
openness that is essential to its rapid growth and success. SUSE is
proud to be part of the foundation drafting process and to support
OpenStack as a Platinum member."

Sean Roberts, Infrastructure Strategy, Yahoo!:

"Continuing Yahoo's strong support of open source, Yahoo is developing
OpenStack for our infrastructure. We believe this emerging technology
will allow Yahoo to increase our competitive infrastructure advantage.
To facilitate the long term stability and new features that Yahoo and
the rest of the OpenStack collaborators want and crave, Yahoo will
continue to support and nurture the OpenStack foundation into the
future."

OpenStack is open source software for building clouds. Created to drive
industry standards, end cloud lock-in and speed cloud adoption,
OpenStack is a common, open platform for both public and private clouds
with the support of over 150 industry leading companies, more than 2,600
global project participants and 100,000+ downloads. The open source
cloud operating system enables businesses to manage compute, storage and
networking resources via a self-service portal and APIs on standard
hardware at massive scale. For more information and to join the
community, visit www.OpenStack.org.